Vishwa Shastra: India and the World

by Dhruva Jaishankar

In Vishwa Shastra, Dhruva Jaishankar provides a comprehensive overview of India's interactions with the world—from ancient times to the present day. He describes a long tradition of Indian statecraft and strategic thinking on international affairs, charts early India's relations with a vast geography from the Mediterranean and Africa to Southeast and Northeast Asia, and captures the costs and consequences of European colonialism. Jaishankar also describes India's territorial, economic and governance challenges upon Independence and the origins of India's rivalries with Pakistan and China.

Speaking to a wide audience that includes policymakers, scholars and especially students, Vishwa Shastra offers both rich historical context and forward-looking strategies for India. Highlighting India's transition from Cold War non-alignment to post-Cold War realignment, Jaishankar outlines India’s strategic bolstering national power, securing the neighbourhood, maintaining a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, and leading at international institutions.

Balanced, comprehensive and rigorous, Vishwa Shastra goes beyond shedding light on how India can maneuver in a challenging geopolitical landscape and advance its interests in an interconnected it gives us a clear-eyed perspective on how India might actually define the emerging world order.

Genres: Nonfiction, India

381 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 15, 2024

Reviews

[Saheb Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is worth reading and a laudable, painstaking effort. If you need a one-stop shop, whirlwind introduction to India and the world, this book is it. It is extensive, attempting to cover all aspects of Indian foreign policy and all of India's relations in the world (to various extents). It is informative, but by virtue of its scope, it lacks depth. But that is alright, because it does not profess to have depth - it is after all an attempt to cover all bases. Unfortunately, and this may just be a personal opinion, the lack of depth, the lack of a singular thread of argument does not make it a necessarily compelling read. I repeat that it is informative - but it is not richly detailed. The book addresses this with its references and recommended readings section. Read the relevant chapters and then proceed to the corresponding recommended reads, and you would have then made the most of this book. In sum, it is not the most attractive book, but it is necessary reading and a laudable attempt.

The book would have benefitted from two efforts - one, an attempt to state and restate an argument throughout the book, which would've pulled the book together and made it far more readable. A very readily available theme to highlight throughout the book would be the basic tenets of Indian foreign policy which India has followed throughout its engagements since independence (if the author feels it is the case). And to use that framing. The book is descriptive and prescriptive; it is not necessarily persuasive and argumentative.

Second, the manuscript would've benefited from a thorough line-by-line, word-by-word, end-to-end read prior to publication. I found several typos, grammatical errors, and sometimes typos that lent themselves to factual inaccuracies. There were multiple instances in every chapter. This was unfortunately quite interruptive - because I would be deep in reading this wonderful book, only to find these errors pulling me out from time to time.
I only have this expectation because the author's reputation precedes them.

[Pavan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting much more from this book, given the author and the purported theme in the book jacket. However, more than a survey of Indian foreign policy and strategic thought, the book ends up being a very rushed pol-mil history of India, followed by a series of think tank essay-style chapters that largely recommend the foreign policy India is already pursuing. I thought I'd be getting more on the intellectual history of Indian foreign policy development and contemporary debates, but the book gives little more than a play-by-play. This would be a good introduction to a complete beginner to the subcontinent, but anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Indian history, you won't get much out of this book. Perhaps one of the recommended readings in the appendix will be a better option.

[Mayank Bawari · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent overview of whatever Indian policy that there is, with barely any time spent going in depth. The biggest strength of the book scope and that is its biggest problem too. The book is very start stop in nature and could’ve been a thousand bullet points sans punctuations. His narrative is middle of road optimist and misses some narrative threads deliberately to not undercut his own thesis.

All in all a good introduction to all this IR, and the best part is the bibliography and the further reading section, which I own to a great extent.